


Promise of Sunbeams

by DragonBandit



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Human nobles are fucked up, Originally for the kink meme, Ostwick was not as bad as Kirkwall but it was still a circle, Pre-Slash, Rite of Tranquility, kind of, possibly, templars are dicks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 17:30:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10904118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonBandit/pseuds/DragonBandit
Summary: Dorian doesn't understand the Inquisitor. Turns out there's a secret that he's not in on.kink meme prompt: What if the Inquisitor had Tranquil parents? How would that affect their personality?





	Promise of Sunbeams

**Author's Note:**

> I lost the original prompt on the kink meme for this, if anyone could help me find it that would be wonderful. (It moved and I have problems reading the mirror).

“When will I get a mark on my forehead, Mama?” Mattie says, sat on the floor amidst his mother’s billowing skirts.

Mama looks up from her stitching, put there by one of the servants, “Never.”

“But you have one, and Papa has one.”

“Yes. We do.”

“Why?”

Mama does not smile. Mama never smiles, “We were mages, and our parents did not want us to be.”

Mattie looks down at himself. Considering his feet, “Will you give me a mark? If I’m a mage?”

Mama does not answer for a long time. “No,” She says, just as Mattie is about to ask again. “I think not.”

* * *

Dorian slides into a booth at the serviceable tavern Haven hold within its walls and aims a charming smile at Sera, sat across from him. “So, our dear Herald,” he starts.

“Out with it already,” Sera interrupts, “don’t try to use all of those floofy words on me, I can’t stand it.”

“Or understand it as the case may be,” Dorian muses. Sera wrinkles her nose at him.

“What do you want to know about him?” She says.

“Merely if you know anything about him,” Dorian says, “I’ve come to believe you are the girl to ask if one wants to know about our merry band of outcasts.”

“And you think I have the dirt on Mattie?”

“Let’s just say that I think you’ll know more than me, being as you’ve been around our little bundle of joy for longer than I have had the pleasure to be.”

Sera leans back in her chair. Dorian takes a drink of the utterly foul Fereldan ale the bartender managed to talk him into and raises an eyebrow. The rogue is frowning, biting at her lip. Obviously there is something here then, Dorian isn’t just barking up the wrong tree.

He’d thought so. The normal response to being thrown into an alternate timeline where the world’s gone to shit is not stony silence and a face that had been so utterly expressionless it had given Dorian chills. And that’s not even mentioning the dull acceptance of Dorian’s flirting.

“Even if I did know something, what makes you think I’d tell you?”

“Camaraderie among friends?”

Sera snorts, “We aren’t friends!”

“Enemies then,” Dorian amends lightly. He gets a laugh for that, but he also get a shake of Sera’s head, and a roll of her eyes.

“If you’re so interested in him, ask him yourself.” She gets up from the table, done with the conversation, and done with Dorian entirely.

* * *

Dorian doesn’t talk to Matthew. Doesn’t have time before the entire world goes to shit. Or at least the part of the world that currently has Dorian in it anyways. It’s really not playing fair when the other party brings a dragon to the field.

Then of course they’re busy hiking through the wilderness to get far enough away from the ruin that was once Haven, and is now the grave of their dear Herald.

They set up camp not too far away, can’t move too far with no directions to go in, and with too many wounded who barely made it this far. Dorian lends his services as a medic for awhile, all he can do unless he wants to be pressed into laundry service. Apparently he’d be good at getting out all the bloodstains, being from Tevinter and all.

Dorian has a feeling that most of the Inquisition is not pleased to make his acquaintance. And the parts of it that are have daggers behind their backs. It’s enough to make a fellow homesick.

His task affords him one advantage though–he’s one of the few who get to see the Herald of Andraste emerge out of a blizzard like one possessed.

Dorian gets one look at Matthew’s face and shudders. Cold blue eyes. Blank face. No exhaustion, no worry, no fear, not even happiness at finally reuniting with the rest of the Inquisition. Simply calm acceptance, before the boy takes one last step and would have fallen flat on his face if it hadn’t been for Cassandra swooping in at the last moment to save him from the ground.

Judging by the other’s expressions, none of them are worried about Maxwell’s lack of emotions. Maybe it’s a southern thing, Dorian muses. But that doesn’t feel right. Especially when he compares Matthew to the Commander, or even to Cassandra. Neither of them give him the chills.

In fact, Matthew makes Dorian think of– but no. No, it isn’t possible. With the information he has he already knows he’s throwing fire up the wrong tree. For one thing, Matthew doesn’t have a brand on his forehead, and he throws lightning better than Dorian does. He puts that theory out of his mind. It must be something else, that causes that strange blankness that means Dorian can’t read Matthew’s intentions at all.

* * *

“How is Skyhold for you, Hellisima?” Dorian hears from his nest in the library. It’s Matthew, judging by the calm even tones that lack almost all intonation.

“Inadequately,” The tranquil says– Dorian thinks he’s talking to the tranquil anyway, he hadn’t caught her name the first time he had run into her and he hadn’t thought to ask for it after. “I cannot at the present complete my duties to my fullest ability.”

“Do you have any recommendations as to how to improve this state?” Matthew asks.

Dorian resists the urge to crane his neck far enough out of his alcove to see the two parties. Honestly, it’s none of his business. Nor is it even a particularly interesting conversation. Except of course for the fact that it includes Matthew, which automatically makes everything interesting.

He is after all, The Inquisitor.

Dorian tries to focus on his book. He does a bad job of it, all of his attention is still on the conversation happening outside of the stacks. Annoyingly, considering how utterly dull the conversation happens to be.

The tranquil offers suggestions to improve Skyhold, good ones considering how the building is falling apart around everyone’s ears. Matthew makes comments, directing who would be in charge of all the minutiae of the requests. In that same, calm measured way of his that drives Dorian up the walls.

Just once he’d like to see Matthew have an emotion.

“How are you being treated?” Matthew asks the tranquil.

“No one is taking advantage of me, and I am free to pursue my studies with minimal interference.”

“Tell me if that changes,” Matthew says.

“I will.”

Judging by the silence afterwards, Dorian presumes the conversation concluded. Good. He needs to get back to his studies, and work out whatever the author of this book was taking to think that fire matrices could be combined in such a way as to produce whatever they were babbling about.

He gets through about a page before the distinct feeling someone is watching him permeates every inch of his being. Dorian snaps his head up to meet the cool gaze of one Matthew Trevelyan, Inquisitor.

Dorian does not make a startled sound, but it’s a close thing. Instead he raises an eyebrow and drawls, “Do you want something, or just here to look?”

“I wanted to know if Skyhold is adequately providing all of your needs.” Matthew says, bland as ever.

Dorian sneers, “And you could gain that knowledge from staring at me?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Interrupt away, Inquisitor.”

“Mattie.”

Dorian blinks, “What?”

“My name. I respond better to Mattie.”

It’s such an odd way to phrase it, I respond better, like the boy doesn’t care what Dorian calls him.

“Mattie then,” Dorian says, “My needs are fine, save for the complete lack of decent wine and all my clothes are designed for much warmer climates than the top of a mountain in a room that lets in a terrible draft.”

“I could find more clothes for you,” Matthew says.

Dorian smiles thinly, “That won’t be necessary,”

Matthew blinks, obviously in confusion and Dorian resists the urge to sigh, “I will be fine,” he says, “go worry about more important things than my complaints.”

“If that’s what you want of me.”

Matthew turns away, Dorian lets his gaze linger on the man’s body until it disappears out of his field of view. As much as the rest of Matthew makes no sense, Dorian would be the first to admit that the mage has an excellent ass. Even through the awful fashions he insists to wear.

Plaidweave does not go with anything. Especially not green silks. One day, Dorian is going to have to join Vivienne and stage an intervention. And then burn the rest of the clothes. Possibly while cackling. He does have a Tevinter Magister image to keep up, what with Mother Giselle having such firm eyes on him.

* * *

“Did you know we’re related?” Dorian says, “Second or third cousins a multitude removed. Don’t you think that’s remarkable?”

Matthew gazes at him. “You looked up my family?”

“Oh just a bit. Thought your last name sounded familiar, that’s all.” Buried in a book, Dorian misses the way Matthew’s expression turns considering. By the time Dorian looks up again the Inquisitor is gone.

PAGE BREAK

His hands are shaking. Even hours later in his alcove his hands still tremor slightly with rage. Dorian refuses to consider the possibility that it’s more than rage doing this. Making his jaw tighten and the words of the dusty tome skip and repeat themselves as his eyes skim over the page.

Damn him. Damn everything.

He turns, giving up on research. He needs a drink, needs in fact several drinks. He almost runs headlong into Matthew, standing in the entrance of the small alcove.

Dorian swears. a horrible oath in Tevene before he manages to bite his tongue and compose himself.

“What do you want?”

Matthew appears to have no reaction to almost being bowled over. Dorian is really starting to hate that poker face of his.

“I thought I should check up on you,” Max says.

“I’m not one of your tranquil friends,” Dorian hisses. Absolutely affronted for reasons he doesn’t care to elaborate on. “I don’t need you to check up on me.”

Matthew tilts his head slightly, like Dorian is a particularly difficult puzzle box given at Midwinter.

“You’re upset.”

“Yes. Well one tends to be when confronted with the very man they wished to never set eyes upon for the rest of their life.”

“I didn’t know it would be your father.”

“And you didn’t think it would be worth mentioning to me that someone from my family would want to talk to me?”

Matthew looks at him with those cold, practically dead eyes. “The Chantry mother said not to.”

“And you trust her?”

“Of course.”

Dorian’s fists clench. His jaw tightens as he fights the urge to grind his teeth. “Then it appears we have reached an impasse, dear Inquisitor.”

Matthew inclines his head. “I’m sorry for upsetting you, Dorian.” The words are mechanical, lacking any type of sincerity. Dorian can’t even glean the false platitude that would normally infect the tone of the words.

He sneers, haughty. “You don’t even know why I’m upset. You have no idea what it’s like to have a family who detests everything about you. To have to look at the man who should love you unconditionally and know that he would betray every moral he has in order to mold you into something you aren’t!”

Matthew’s face, blank at the best of times twists into something resembling an actual human expression before it flatlines again. Dorian thrills with the knowledge that if he pushes hard he can crack what looks like an impassable facade.

“I’m a mage,” Matthew says. “Of course I know what it’s like.” He leaves then. Muttering something or other about another obligation. As is always the Inquisitor’s way, running to and fro around the keep and all its inhabitants. Dorian is left to stare at his back, mouth agape and feeling like a fool. That’s the problem with being in a foreign country; Dorian always forgets that here it’s mages who are at the bottom of the ladder, instead of at the top.

* * *

Dorian resolves to leave the man alone. The Inquisitor, Matthew. Obviously the man isn’t interested in bedding him and while Dorian isn’t the best at the whole privacy thing he can work out when his nose isn’t wanted.

It lasts for about all of a week.

Skyhold takes in another group of mage refugees and templar platoon with nowhere else to go. Dorian, up in the rafters of the library can only vaguely ascertain the screaming match that happens when the two groups meet each other. By the time curiosity sends him down the stairs the argument is mostly over, reduced now to silent glares from either side of the courtyard.

At the very center stands Matthew, Cullen, and a templar that Dorian doesn’t recognise. The air around them makes the hair on Dorian’s arms raise when he slinks forwards to if not intervene at least understand what all the fuss is about. The area is saturated with static–the surest sign that a lightning mage is being pushed to the end of their tether. Matthew’s face is as blank as it always is. It is the two non-mages who show any sign of being angry.

“Inquisitor we need all the support we can get.” Cullen is saying in an undertone. “We don’t have the option of just refusing people. Especially after we’ve granted them shelter.”

“You granted them shelter,” Matthew says. “If I had known about this beforehand then there wouldn’t be a problem.” His gaze is firmly fixed on the other templar. Not Cullen.

“It said that all were welcome,” the Templar says. The smile he gives is all teeth, “Now be a good boy and do what you’re told.”

“How about you do what you’re told to for once,” Matthew says. For the first time Dorian hears an undercurrent of emotion there. In every single syllable Matthew oozes with pure hatred. “How about you leave me alone as both the knight commander and first enchanter of Ostwick both ordered you to do? How about you stop chasing me across countries and go back to being the stain upon the makers breeches that you are?”

“Inquisitor!”

“Haven’t you grown a spine. Leadership doesn’t suit you Mattie.”

“Matthew.”

“Is that any way to treat an old friend, Mattie?”

“You aren’t my friend!” Matthew’s voice cracks, and so does his magic. Lightning arcs across his fingers, and then the courtyard, reaching for the templar that still stands, sneering at Matthew.

Cullen curses. He grabs Matthew by the back of his robes, blue light shining from his closed fingers. The lightning stops. Matthew slumps, puppet cut from it’s strings. A smite, Dorian recognises from fighting alongside Cassandra. Even from his safe distance Dorian can feel the smites power pushing at his magic.

“Should have branded you while we all had the chance,” the Templar says. “Then you could have joined mummy and daddy and been a good boy for everyone instead of pretending to be the herald of Andraste. As if any Trevelyan has the chance to make anything of themselves.”

Matthew snarls, struggling to keep upright under Cullen’s hold.

“What?” Dorian says, before he can think better of it.

“You mean you don’t know?” the Templar mocks. “Oh Matthew, how is anyone meant to keep you safe if they don’t know about your little problem?”

“Don’t,” Matthew says. The rest of whatever he says lost as the Templar laughs.

“Matthew Trevelyan should be tranquil,” The Templar announces. Loud enough for the words to carry across the whole of the courtyard. “Your Inquisitor is an emotionally volatile, immature mage who is a danger both to himself and others. The only reason he’s not branded like the rest of the mages in his family is because the Knight Commander of Ostwick gave him to the mage hunters so he could be used as a weapon until he went and ran away. Isn’t that right Matthew?”

Dorian scoffs. “Matthew? Emotionally volatile? Until today I didn’t think the man had any feelings at all! Matthew, surely you can’t let this man slander you like this.”

Matthew’s head bows. His silence all the answer anyone needs.

“Ah,” Dorian says. “I see.”

Matthew shrugs out of Cullen’s lax fingers. For the first time since the fall of Haven he doesn’t stand at his full height. His shoulders hunch in on themselves, hands buried in pockets. He doesn’t meet anyone’s gaze.

“Rutherford lock this man in the dungeon. Someone else will have to try him.”

“What is he being tried for?”

Matthew just snorts. “Where would you like me to start?” He asks. The question made rhetorical as he turns on his heel and stalks towards the tavern. Dorian watches him leave. For the second time in as many conversations with Matthew, he feels like an idiot.

* * *

Later, Dorian leans across a chessboard and says in an undertone, “Is there something that I don’t know about Matthew?”

Cullen doesn’t bother pretending he doesn’t understand what Dorian is asking. “You know I used to work in Kirkwall before here.”

“Yes, it’s all anyone could talk about for months on end,” Dorian says. “What does this have to do with it?”

“Ostwick is next to Kirkwall. The conditions there aren’t as infamous but they’re by no means pleasant.”

“Like all mage towers south of Tevinter.”

Cullen nods. “In particular Ostwick and other parts of the Free Marches are known for an agreement that the noble families have with the knight commanders. The nobles hand over a lump of gold that goes straight in the templars pockets, and the circle looks after any of the families offspring until a marriage has been set up.”

“As far as I was aware mages can’t marry here.”

“They can’t.”

Dorian tilts his head. “Then how does this agreement work?”

“The same way everything in the circle works.” Cullen’s eyes close. “The Trevelyan family is governed by Matthew’s grandmother, in part because she won’t let anyone else take the title from her, but the real reason is because both her son and daughter in law are tranquil.”

It takes Dorian a moment to work out the sick feeling in his stomach. Revulsion, he finally settles on as Cullen trounces him at chess. Horrified and fascinated revulsion.

“And everyone but me knew about this?” he asks.

“It wasn’t uncommon knowledge in Kirkwall.” Cullen checkmates his king. “And he told the others who didn’t know. It’s why his emotions don’t work the way you expect them to; for most of his life he’s been surrounded by tranquil, and after that the circle treated him as being only slightly better than one.”

“Do I not count as being worthy of being told? Should I be insulted?” Dorian smiles as he says it but he does feel betrayed. “Is it because I’m an evil Magister?”

Cullen looks up at Dorian. “He thought you knew.”

* * *

The lightning flickers between Matthews fingers. Purple energy coalesced into a ball about the size of his palm. Matthew throws it into the air, catches it. His room smells like the evening before a storm, rain on the horizon but still only threatening to fall.

Up.

Down.

On his other hand the mark of the breach burns with foreign enchantment. It hurts. A dull pain that promises to get worse before it gets better.

His staff sits in the corner of the room. Dawnstone and dragon bone and runes for frost.

Up.

Down.

Tranquil do not have emotions. They’re incapable of them, as well as of wanting more than the basics. No one cares what happens to a tranquil. Matthew is not tranquil. His emotions rise and fall like tides. Blinding in their ferocity one second the next he barely feels anything at all.

Matthew is angry almost all of the time.

Up.

Down.

He is emotionally volatile, only allowed to exist because of his high amounts of magic. A side product of tranquil pairings; the offspring are more likely to be mages as well. The footnote of Matthew’s existence written in the informal language of a textbook. He had burned the textbook after reading it.

The nobles, already unhappy with him, will demand the brand for him. The mages will be split on the issue; some agreeing that a dangerous mage is better dead, the others crying about the abuses that tranquil suffer.

His inner circle will be similarly split. Sera will be afraid of him, as will Bull. Solas will not understand and Vivienne will misinterpret the results to fit herself. Cassandra will take it as her duty to fell him if his magic goes too far out of control.

Up.

Down.

Blackwall is a mystery, could go one way or the other depending on what he views his duty to be. Dorian, who lives in a world where magic is used from everything from powering colossi to fight the horned invaders to courting gifts will fail to see the issue entirely. Varric will want to write a book.

Cullen will institute a guard and Josephine will agree with him to fend off the angry letters. Leliana will deal with the templar in the dungeon without asking Matthew beforehand. The mages and the Templars will argue with each other before realising that in Skyhold there’s no point, especially when the world might be ending in a few months. Weeks. Days.

Up.

Down.

Matthew is volatile. The Inquisitor is not. The Inquisitor is the one who must lead them all to victory, to fight against Corypheus. To win, to close every breach in the fade with a power that no one else is able to replicate.

Up.

Matthew draws the sunburst on his forehead.

The Inquisitor has no emotions save one: Will to go on.

The ball of lightning fades out of existence, tendrils of magic escaping to the fade.

Matthew closes his eyes, breathes.

Tomorrow he’ll go to the Hinterlands. It’s about time he dealt with that damn goat.


End file.
